


Bird on a Wire

by took_skye



Series: Living For the Night [18]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, F/M, POV First Person, POV Male Character, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-31
Updated: 2011-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-22 20:26:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/took_skye/pseuds/took_skye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Former cop Jason Gideon should have known that sometimes the pull of someone, something, is greater than a man can refuse...especially when it's so beautifully dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bird on a Wire

  
_"Like any uncharted territory I must seem greatly intriguing." ~ Alanis Morrisette, Uninvited_

***///***

I step into my home above the bar and sense her presence even before hearing the shower. Lil brings with her always the same feeling; a knot in the stomach and pinpricks over the spine that should alert any man to danger. The smells of blood and sex hang thick in the air as if a trail left by her movements.

Self-preservation always tells me to change the locks, cut her off before she grows any older, but I’ll do no such thing. Like the owner of a wild animal I’ll keep by her at my own peril for reasons I cannot begin to understand myself. I’ll let her slip in and out of my home as if it were her own and I’ll listen as she discusses those urges to spill the blood of those around her without judgment. I’ll care for her even though she cannot truly do the same for me.

My living room shows signs of her in books strewn about with ruby droplets and smears at various open pages. I go to some of the books to examine what’s been read. Love, evil, purity, sex, violence, secrets, instincts all make their appearances without any seeming common thread amongst the literature.

The water slows to a drip with the creaking of pipes. I can picture the scene in there…red blood diluted to a thin pink-hued liquid circling the drain. Blond hair darkened to brown and skin cleaned of all sign of violence save what she does to herself. Those thin strawberry gashes on her arms and legs to get her morning releases. If she were a normal girl I’d encourage her to stop that, yet she’s anything but and those lines are drawn to keep her from slashing throats.

“Lilith.” I call out to her so she knows I’m there.

The door opens a crack, steam billows out, but otherwise there is silence.

“Are you hungry?”

“Famished.” The word comes with a quick vision of blue eyes, a brief flash the female form as it moves in the mist. “You should make something spicy.”

I give her an interested smile. “And why’s that?”

“I feel like something spicy.”

“Fair enough.” I glance back down at one of the many opened books and smile a little to myself. “So…what is the topic of today, exactly?”

There always is one with her, some human element just beyond her grasp that peaks her curiosity. Something to discuss and debate with me, something I can hope to teach and she can hope to understand better.

The door finally opens and reveals the slender girl with sapphire eyes wrapped tightly in white cloth. “What’s the topic?” She teases, her lips curling into a lazy smile as she steps out in just the towel wrapped around her. “You can’t tell?”

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

“It’s you.” She reaches me, drips water on The Bible as she points out a line in a book. “About birds, Jason, you like them, right?”

I smile softly at her. “Yes, very much.”

“I want to try and understand why.”

“That’s very…kind of you.”

The girl shrugs and looks back up at me. “I couldn’t figure it out though.”

I give a small laugh. “Not even a theory?”

She must have one, she's always been such a bright girl. Bright and studious with flashes of maturity beyond what she should be capable of.

“Plenty of theories.”

“Such as?”

Lil’s eyes catch mine; pull me upright and towards her. “Hope.”

“Hope?”

Cotton candy pink lips work themselves into a taunting smile. “You’re sucker for it, Jason, and it’s the thing most commonly associated with birds as far as I can see.” Her hand reaches out carefully to my face, touching my cheek as if it were crystal. “You crave people to have it like I do fear, don’t you?”

I fascinate her as she does me. “I do.”

“You crave it in me?”

“I do.”

Her touch brings a heat to my face that hasn’t been there in decades.

“And the fear?" My lips mumble out the words. "Do you crave that in me?”

“No.”

My confusion must show because she laughs a little. “It’s already there in its way.”

“Which is?”

Lil moves herself closer to me, her face closer to mine, as her gaze continues to hold mine. “You fear how you feel about me.”

“How do I feel about you, Lil?”

She smirks. “You care.” Her fingers spread over the side of my face. “Love. It’s why, rather than call the cops or tell me you’ll have no part in me, you let me into your home.”

My brows raise slowly.

“You allow me to shower and burn up evidence. You feed me, dress me, give me aid, comfort, and allow me almost priestly confessions.” The other hand rises to cradle my face and her voice drops low to gravel. “You touch the blade I use to kill without shaking.”

Her closeness becomes constricting. Of all the things she does it’s when she’s the least threatening that I feel the most uneasy.

“Without any fear you instruct me to behave. You know exactly what I am capable of and exactly how much I enjoy it and you stay close.”

Dizziness hits suddenly. I take a step back, give myself the cushion of space that allows air back into my lungs, and grope for a change in topic. “You should get dressed, Lil.”

“Should I?”

“Yes.” I answer firmly, more firmly than I should.

Her laugh breaks up all the tension there’d been and she goes to turn away. “You should start on that meal, Jason.”

***

“Do you know what they call a gathering of crows?”

“A murder.” I answer from the kitchen as I toss chopped meat into the skillet with the vegetables.

“Yeah.”

“You think you’re a crow?”

She laughs from somewhere in my apartment. “Maybe. Or maybe a raven. What do you think?”

“I think you’re intentionally picking birds that are associated with death.”

“Well, can you blame me?”

My shrug comes with a wave of my hands. “No, but I don’t think that that’s all you are, Lil.”

“Then what am I?”

I give my nose a slight scratch as her smells mix with those from the meal and momentarily overwhelm.

“The vulture? The mocking bird? Maybe the red-breasted robin?”

It’s the incomprehensible punch she gives the last option that gets me to turn from the food to her. She's by the sink wearing a tee shirt of mine that brings out the blue in her eyes all the more and her own boy-shorts.

My breath stops on an intake. I’ve made a mistake, left a steak knife out in the open in my rush to prepare dinner, and now it balances in her palm as if a part of her.

“Are you scared?” She asks softly, the tone carrying a mixture of curiosity, concern, and a razor’s edge of arousal.

“Not exactly.”

“Then what are you?”

“On edge.” The exhale comes.

“On a knife’s edge?” The girl gives a laugh that shows her youth. “You shouldn’t be scared.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re bigger and stronger than me still,” she points out with a smile as she brings the steel tip to the counter and twists. “It wouldn’t take you much effort at all to subdue me.”

“We don’t know that for certain.” I’m not worried though. Maybe I should be, but I’m not.

“We could always try it out.” Her smirk tells me she’s teasing even as her slow, steady, walk in my direction carries a threat with the harsh scraping of metal to marble.

“No Lil.” I turn back to the food.

“Don’t be scared, Jason,” her voice cuts low and deep suddenly, a feminine mock-up of her father’s growl. “You know I’d never _really_ hurt you.”

She’s pushing her bounds, my bounds, the bounds of our relationship. This isn’t the first time. At twelve she slit her arms in my bathroom, at thirteen brought a boy into the apartment, and at fifteen gave me a watch that ended up being that of a recent victims.

“Jason,” she sing-songs out to me. Black painted nails wrap around my arm, her hand gives a gentle squeeze.

Before she can push this game farther I pin the wrist holding the sharpened knife to the counter and take the weapon from her. “Do not play me.” I make sure my words cut even and firm as I make eye contact. “We both know what you are capable of.”

“I would never hurt you.” Lil says with every ounce of truth she has in this moment.

Too bad moments are ever changing.

“I don’t know that.” I soften my stare, my tone, my hold on her wrist as I set the knife aside. “You don’t know that.” It’s like reminding a child that, even though she won’t mean to, she’ll probably spill something on the carpet.

“I wouldn’t.” She insists softly with a frown as if hurt by my words.

It looks beautiful on her, the glimpses of true emotion she sometimes gives me. Fleeting shadows of what she could be. I imagine such fragile beauty is lost on her father…mistaken for weakness and discarded. Yet I see glimmers of hope, of humanity, and they are what bring me back to her time and time again.

I turn her arm over; expose the red, the pink, the jaggedly-marked skin. “You do all this to yourself and it is still not enough.” I point out gently. “Still you have to kill.”

Lil’s lips move to smile, but the smile never reaches her eyes. “Maybe I’m not a bird at all. Maybe I’m just the scorpion?”

“No, you’re not,” I assure with a smile and kiss to the injured arm that brings that smile of hers to her eyes. “Now go get ready for dinner, please.”

***

“You still haven’t told me what bird you think I am.” Lil’s voice drifts over the shared meal before she sips her cola from the wine glass.

I set my fork down and smile a moment before answering. “A swan.”

“A swan?” She gives a nervous laugh with a confused look, not sure how to take the answer.

“Not just any swan,” I smile a little more as I cast my arms out a touch while giving her the complimentary truth. “The black swan. Beautiful, aggressive, and something that no one would ever expect to truly exist.”

A smirk curls and creeps over her face. “And sexual.”

The comment catches me off guard and I try to blink the shocked expression off my face.

Lil still catches and runs with it. “In that ballet, Swan Lake, The Black Swan is the sexual one, isn’t she? She’s dark and so tempting that the prince can’t refuse her.”

Her legs splay as she shifts to the edge of her chair to lean over the corner of the table where I sit at her right. “Is that how you see me, Jason?”

I keep focus on her face, her eyes, as my periphery catches the skin of legs, knees, starts of thighs. It's intentional on her part, I know this. If she thought herself able to get away with it she'd hike up the tee shirt farther to show off even more.

“You’re sixteen.”

“So?”

I wave off the topic, return my attention to my meal. “So eat your dinner.”

Not my finest moment of debate, but I don’t want this discussion. Not yet. Not while I have yet to fully explore such things myself. Not while Lil is still a girl, still developing into whatever she might become.

“I’m not hungry for food anymore.” She pushes her plate away, stands, looks down on me. "Now answer me, Jason."

Lil is the wind in a high-wire act. There are times she is calm and even complimentary; other times she is extreme and throwing me so off-balance I could risk falling. However she herself cannot be blamed, it is her nature.

“I’m not doing this with you, Lil. You’re sixteen, a girl, and I’m not discussing this with you.”

“You’re such a fucking coward.”

I look up calmly as her eyes go from midday to dusk.

“Because I'm not giving you what you want, I’m a coward?” My frustration shows in a tense chuckle as I slip my steak knife from the table just in case.

Lil’s darkest laugh bubbles up. “No, silly.” The words carry a tease as does her hand as it rides over my shoulder, the back of my neck, and into my hair where she fists a little. “You’re a coward because, as close as you allow me, you won’t admit why.”

“I do it in hopes of saving you.”

She’s bent behind me now as she asks low in my ear. “Now who’s playing who?”

There’s a sigh of disappointment when I don’t reply. The weight of her head hits my spine, causes it to straighten and stiffen in the extreme.

“I’m gonna go now, Jason.” Her head leaves my body and I turn some to see her smiling. “I’ll see ya around.”

I wonder if she isn’t punishing me for my dishonesty. That she’s cutting off access to all of her because I won’t allow her access to a part of myself. Is she hurt that I can’t be honest about this?

She goes to her over-sized bag on the couch, pulls out blue jeans browned with blood, and slips them on. “I’m keeping the shirt.”

“That’s fine.” I tell her softly.

Lil gives a small laugh and heads back to me. My cheek receives a childish kiss. “Later, Jason!”

She heads out of my place no longer seeming upset or sad or cross. Perhaps I read too much into the departure? Perhaps she simply wasn’t getting her way and grew bored with me? ...Or perhaps she simply knows that this sudden exit will make me think about her all the more?

***///***

 _"Curiousity is one of Satan's favorite paths to lead man to sin." ~ Anonymous_


End file.
